Renaming Files Using Denote Schema in a Dired Buffer

Last month I wrote Creating an Emacs Command to Rename Files per Denote File Naming Schema. I’ve been using it in a one-off situation.

And yesterday I wrote a wrapping function to call in dired.

(defun jf/dired-rename-files-to-denote-schema ()
  "Rename marked files in `dired-mode'."
  (interactive)
  (when (seq-find (lambda (file)
                    (member (file-name-nondirectory file) '("." "..")))
                  (dired-get-marked-files))
    (user-error "Can't rename \".\" or \"..\" files"))
  (dolist (file (dired-get-marked-files))
    (let ((current-prefix-arg nil))
      (apply #'jf/rename-file-to-denote-schema
        (list :file file :signature :prompt)))))

The above did require a bit of a refinement to the initial implementation. The refined jf/rename-file-to-denote-schema is available here.

What all of this means is that I can go to a directory, mark the files I want to rename (typing m on the row), then invoking M-x jf/dired-rename-files-to-denote-schema.

This also demonstrates the utility and flexibility of separating the looping logic from the logic for performing an action.